Everyone has always gone through the state of being emotional at some time of point in their lives. Emotion is the striking characteristic of being human. We undergo a wide variety of emotions namely anger, distress, sadness, happiness, jolly, depression and so on. There are also certain stereotypes that we humans have made regarding emotions and also about emotional people. But the strangest fact is that, though emotions are a major part of our lives and that we experience it daily, we still get many things wrong about it. We have certain myths about emotions- they are difficult to handle, it is not in our control, we can’t help about how we feel about something or someone, it makes us weak, and so on! This article will shatter some of these myths that we have been believing about emotions.

Myth 1- Emotions cannot be expressed in words!

Well, I too believed in this myth until I found that it is not so. Emotions can definitely be expressed in words. Instead of expressing them in writing can be a helpful way to reduce the emotional reactions. This has been proved scientifically. Writing down your anger and frustration onto a paper can prove the best way to bring self-control over them. Writing them down in words activates the brain’s control system and reduces the emotional influence on our reactions. So whenever you feel that your emotions are getting too heavy to handle, just pen them down. It makes you feel relieved and less sentimental. That’s where, I guess, the practice of writing a personal diary might have started!

Myth 2- We can’t help how we feel!

Emotions, as they can be controlled can also be altered! We think that getting emotional is just a spontaneous reaction that we give to people or situations. But it is no so. It depends upon the importance of the thing, person or interpretation of the situation that makes us emotional. For example, a joke cannot make everyone laugh! And it’s a true experience that all of us have experienced because frankly speaking there have been many times when I don’t find jokes funny and my friends laugh out loud to those jokes! This is because our interpretation might differ than others. Also on someone’s death, you feel sad about it if the person was very close to you. You would not feel the same for the death of a stranger! So, it does depend on us on how to feel about certain things or people or situations depending on their importance in our lives.

Myth 3- Negative emotions make us feel worse.

This myth is completely silly as emotions cannot be categorized as positive or negative, good or bad! It depends on what we choose to do with them. Anger is not at all negative! For example, if in anger you insult someone who has pointed out mistakes in your work, this is where your reaction makes the emotion ‘anger’ to have a negative influence on you. But, on the other hand, if you decide not to retaliate in such manner and use your anger as a motivation to improve your work, then ‘anger’ no more remains negative!